Extinction has a ripple effect

Jessica Oswald, an NSF predoctoral fellow at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, holds the mandible, or beak, of an extinct species of cowbird, Pandanaris convexa, recently discovered for the first time in Mexico. The bird has previously only been found at the Rancho La Brea fossil site in California and a site in Reddick, between Gainesville and Ocala in North Central Florida. Oswald is lead author of a new study in the March 8, 2011, print edition of the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeocology. The research shows the ripple effect throughout the animal kingdom caused by the extinction of large mammals 20,000 years ago, including the disappearance of a cowbird species. (Credit: Florida Museum of Natural History/UF photo by Kristen Grace)